As you may have heard, Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe has an idea.

He wants Quebec to have its own 'national' hockey team. From CTV...

"I would like to see the same rules as those applying to Scotland or Wales or Northern Ireland,'' Duceppe said during a news conference.

"They have their own players in the soccer World Cup or the rugby World Cup. If it's possible in Great Britain, it could be possible in Canada.''

Let me say, even as someone with a slew of Scottish Nationalist relatives back in the old country, the British way is a dumb way.

Take soccer, their equivalent to hockey, obsession-wise. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all field separate teams. How many World Cups do they have between them?

One.

England in 1966 (and that was decided by a disputed goal).

Scotland has never made it past the first round of a World Cup tournament.

Wales and Northern Ireland have four World Cup appearances between them in total. Neither team has ever appeared in a European Cup tournament.

As it happens, one of soccer's great stars, George Best, died last week. Best was from Belfast, and never saw much in the way of international play, except at the club level. Imagine a talent like Best shoring up a combined British team. Best played in the 1960s and 1970s, but the same holds for any era. A British team would be a contender in a way that England seldom is, and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland never are.

One of the great moments in Canadian sporting history took place in 1987, in game three of the Canada Cup tournament. With just over a minute left in the game, Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux break out of their own end. Anglophone Canada's greatest player, Gretzky, passes to Francophone Canada's greatest player, Lemieux, who scores a winning goal on one of the great Soviet teams.

Duceppe would have taken these two great players and ripped a line between them. How would a Team Quebec, or a Team English Canada, have fared against that Soviet squad? How would they fare against any current U.S., Czech, Russian or Swedish team?

Would they win? Sure. Sometimes. But I imagine Duceppe would rather watch a Team Quebec that loses than a Team Canada, even one with its share of Quebecois players, that wins.